"...a propaganda stick with which they will beat us for years." Thoughts on Imperial Reckoning

If nothing else, my visits to Africa over the last two years have done a lot to expose my own naivete and confront some truths about the world I was formerly pleased to ignore. It was during my first trip to Africa that I read State of Africa by Martin Meredith and King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild. The latter book in particular (concerned with the history of the Belgian Congo, especially the largely-forgotten humanitarian crisis circa 1900) exposed the worst side of colonialism and why it was such a good thing it ended.

Reading up on Africa somehow led me most recently to Imperial Reckoning: the Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya, a 2005 book by Caroline Elkins which won her a Pulitzer Prize. Learning a supposedly-enlightened nation like England perpetuated a brutal concentration camp system in the 1950s brought to mind some of Romeo Dallaire's assertions about the Holocaust in Shake Hands With the Devil - that when the world declared "never again" at the Holocaust, they didn't actually mean it. History seems to bear this out as the British - including people who had suffered in Japanese concentration camps in the previous decade - brought the boot down on hundreds of thousands of innocent Kenyan victims for most of the 1950s.

"In the heart of the British Empire there is a police state where the rule of law has broken down, where the murder and torture of Africans by Europeans goes unpunished and where the authorities pledged to enforce justice regularly connive at its violation."

It's a terrible story of human depravity in which those who inflicted the suffering are never brought to justice, instead just mildly rebuked (if at all). The British cover-up essentially began the same day as the human rights abuses, making it tricky to determine the final body counts. Elkins' book seems determined to indict those responsible, but makes the case all too strongly. The book starts off very strong in recounting the rise of the Mau Mau and how the colonials justified breaking every law of human rights to combat the "emergency," but after the first hundred pages a bit of rot sets in. The same abuses are inflicted on people again and again in different prisons or rehabilitation camps. Stories which are narrated by people who lived through the events are compelling, but all too often I feel like Elkins showed too much of her work as the book repeats itself. It also seriously loses the thread of the Mau Mau uprising when the focus shifts to the camps - terrible as the abuses the detainees suffer are, what's the context? Where are the British in their fight against the Mau Mau as the torturing/mass burials/sodomy is inflicted? All often, the author plunges into rants comparing the camps to the Soviets & Nazis instead of letting the testimonies of those she interviewed stand on their own.

Altogether, it's a sobering read, but could have been tightened up. An entire book of anecdotes from survivors would have been more to my liking, personally.

"We supply Britain's economic wealth and get unemployment in return" Scotland: a Graphic History by Jeff Fallow

My youngest brother Matthew is much more fascinated with our family's Scottish roots than any other family member. In the three years since he moved to Scotland I've had the opportunity to visit him just once, but my own understanding of Scotland has been strengthened from Matthew's many Scot-themed gifts over the years - particularly books. Given my interests (and resume) Matthew reasoned this year's birthday present should be a copy of Jeff Fallow's Scotland: a Graphic History.

Reaching just 154 pages, it's important to note this book does not attempt to analyze Scottish culture - this is primarily a political history concerned with Scotland's tormented relationship with England over the centuries. "Scotland's identity has never been in question" states Fallow in the introduction, and thus the only references made to Robert Burns are those which touch upon how Burns' poetry was inspired by the struggle for independence. After opening with a quick summation of some famous Scottish inventions and inventors, the real narrative begins as Scottish history is rapidly broken down. The story is concerned with what the Scottish have been fighting for, not who the Scottish are.

It should be noted this book is not quite a graphic novel. It tells Scottish history through words and pictures, but not via sequential art - it's really a very sophisticated picture book. Although "sophisticated" would be a misnomer, since the black & white art is very basic, similar to the style Michael Kupperman uses in his deliberately-primitive Tales Designed to Thrizzle stories.

Being a political tome, the book seldom gets off its soapbox - never fear missing the Scottish perspective on English rule because it's underlined throughout. At times it's as polemical as anything Steve Ditko has penned (but not as fun to look at).

Although the early centuries move past quickly, recent Scottish history is described in much greater detail; for instance, Henry VIII's conquest of Scotland (described as "ensuring English military superiority once and for all") receives one page, while the thoroughly-loathed Margaret Thatcher receives four pages (John Major also takes a lot of hits); the last third of the book is little more than a collection of newspaper political cartoons. Unfortunately, the last third of the book was also apparently the least-proofread, given how one page appears twice (the second time in a rougher draft of the finished product) and another page appears in not-ready-for-print draft condition out-of-sequence a few pages later.

As a quick primer on Scottish history, it gets the job done, yes? It isn't as well-done as Canada at War or Action Philosophers, but as it's evidently the only book of it's kind, I don't see an alternative.

Review: the Parade's Gone By

Kevin Brownlow's 1968 book the Parade's Gone By looks back on the days of silent cinema, yet today is as much a historical artifact as its own subject matter.

I learned of Brownlow through his 1980s TV mini-series Hollywood; if you haven't seen it, please make the effort. This series was a fantastic history of how Hollywood became the film capital of the world, the pioneering techniques developed during the early days of cinema and the business was transformed by the introduction of "talkies." Heading into the 580-page the Parade's Gone By I expected something similar, but what I found was a strange match.

The Parade's Gone By features extensive quotes from silent-era actors, directors, producers, cameramen, stuntmen and what-have-yous, each interviewed by Brownlow prior to 1968; often, Brownlow turns the narrative over to his interviewee and they proceed to describe how they got into the film industry or relate some colourful anecdotes about what the business had been like.

However, unlike Hollywood, the Parade's Gone By fails to deliver a comprehensive look at the silent business; those people whom Brownlow contacted are given space, as is D.W. Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. (albeit, neither extensively so). And yet, so many names are missing from this book. Brownlow dotes upon Josef von Sternberg, Gloria Swanson and Reginald Denny, but where are King Vidor, Laurel & Hardy or Lon Chaney? So many books could be written about the days of silent film and Brownlow clearly had access to impressive research, but it isn't clear why he chose for inclusion the personalities he did and omitted the rest.

Easily the worst thing about the book - and what dates it the most - is Brownlow's frequent editorializing about the state of cinema in 1968. Throughout the text he makes jabs at then-contemporary films such as It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Worldand includes weasel words such as dubbing Intolerance "still the biggest picture ever made." Personally, I don't like the former picture and I do quite like the latter, but I don't like film criticism mixed with film history, even when I agree with the critic.

It is amusing to read von Sternberg's reactions to Brownlow's "parenthetical observations" as Brownlow seems unable to place a simple question before his subject without citations and disclaimers. "You have the most amazing paranthetical approach with everything you say that I have ever heard in my life," Sternberg says while the 30 minutes he allotted for Brownlow's interview quietly ticks away.

Frequently through the book, Brownlow complains about the state of film preservation and presentation circa 1968, fuming at how cinemas ran silent pictures at the incorrect film rate. These diatribes really belong in a separate manifesto, rather than dating his history lesson. In his epilogue, Brownlow goes so far as to claim filmmakers of his time were "generally less imaginative, less daring, and less skillful than their silent-era counterparts." To this, we must apply Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap and I believe it applies as much to silent cinema as it did 1968 cinema (or 2013 cinema).

For all of these complaints, the Parade's Gone By is a fantastic book, if only for the interviews with people like Joseph Henabery (who worked with Griffith), von Sternberg, Gloria Swanson and Mary Pickford. There's also a fantastic history of Ben-Hur and how it became a terrible fiasco and some attention is given to the silent films of Europe.

I can't recommend the Parade's Gone By to a casual fan of books on cinema - I think you should really watch Hollywood first in order to better understand silent films; having seen it and doubtlessly wanting more, that's when you should pull up a copy of the Parade's Gone By.

Review: Tarzan the Ape Man (1981)

"Do you know you're more beautiful than any girl I know? Oh, you're a lot more."

- Jane (to Tarzan)

Following the success of Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark (in 1977 & 1981, respectively) Hollywood seemed to believe audiences were experiencing nostalgia for good ol' fashioned adventure films; somehow, this led to the decision to launch wave after wave of nostalgia-fueled properties which, 1979's Superman aside, were not successful: Buck Rogers. Flash Gordon. The Lone Ranger.

It's amidst this backdrop that 1981's Tarzan the Ape Man came to be; I can only assume producer-star Bo Derek and her director-husband John Derek selected Tarzan as the actress' next vehicle because they felt there was money to be made from exploiting the supposed nostalgia wave. I had heard the resulting movie was pretty bad; yesterday I watched it and... it is bad. Really quite very bad.

Tarzan the Ape Man tells the tale of Jane Parker, a young woman who journeys to Africa to find her long-absent father. Learning her father is about to undertake an expedition into a region of Africa never before seen by white men, Jane determines to accompany the group to prove she's as beautiful, intelligent and courageous as every character in the film claims her to be. The party falls prey to certain pitfalls during the trip, none greater than a tribe of body-painted people who kidnap women. Am I forgetting anything? Oh yes, Tarzan is also in this picture.

This film makes so many baffling decisions I hardly know where to begin; how about the action scenes? Yes, both of them. In the first, a snake attacks Jane and Tarzan leaps to her rescue, wrestling the snake off her body. This thrilling sequence is shot as a series of slow-motion close-ups and fadeaways, making it impossible to see what's going on; the snake isn't really defeated, the sequence simply ends so another scene can begin.

Second, we have the battle with the painted people at the climax. When they first attack the expedition, we see them chasing Jane and then... look I can't make this up... there's a spin cut and the fight is over, the expedition has lost. No action scene required, just the same scene transition you'd expect from a prime time sitcom. Tarzan does rescue the expedition by battling the painted chief. Although the fight goes on for about 3 minutes, that's only because the entire scene is shot in slow motion, just in case the viewer mistakenly found themselves getting excited. Shots of Tarzan swinging on vines are similarly done in slow-motion. Supposedly this film had former Tarzan star Jock Mahoney as its stunt coordinator; it's hard to imagine what he did all day on set when he was supposed to be preparing stunts... it sure didn't make it to the final cut.

Let's talk about clash of tone. Near the end, Jane is tied up, washed and painted by the painted people. While Jane sobs and descends into hysterics, her father rants inanely. On paper, this could be a disturbing scene. Unfortunately, the film's director was married to Jane and he shot this sequence for maximum titillation. Emphasis on "tit."

In another sequence, there are shots of the expedition climbing across a steep mountain using ropes. Frequent cutaways to the ropes show them growing frayed by the constant tension. Suddenly, one of the ropes breaks and a porter falls to his death. Cut to a dramatically lit Mr. Parker who raises his fists to the sun and bellows, "Why did you do that?! WHY?!" On the page, it sounds like tragedy; instead, it's one of the funniest moments in the film.

Oh yes... laughs. You really have to laugh when you can while watching Tarzan the Ape Man because unlike any other Tarzan film I've seen, this one takes itself completely serious. So much of this film could have been redeemed with moments of light comedy, but the intent was apparently to make a "serious" Tarzan picture. It's clearly not for boys (ie, the R-rating)... I can only assume they hoped women would be receptive to the supposed sweeping romance of Jane's love for Tarzan.

And yet, I'm not sure if the Jane-Tarzan relationship really is the point of the film; Tarzan doesn't enter the picture until it's already half over and even when he and Jane do begin their hour-long staring contest, it holds less passion than any given scene from the Blue Lagoon (which was filmed with teenagers, I remind you). Having no dialogue, Tarzan's motivations are a mystery; he alternates between fear and fascination with Jane until they finally hook up immediately before the closing credits.

At one point, Tarzan is unconscious and Jane begins pawing after his body, remarking "I've never touched a man before!" while grinning like a schoolgirl. Lest you accuse the film of double standards, when Tarzan revives he spends about a minute feeling Jane's breasts. The difference, I suppose, is that Jane is intelligent enough to realize fondling Tarzan is wrong, yet does so anyway (and with glee); Tarzan is curious and uneducated. At various points I felt as though I was watching an adult molesting an innocent child, which is surely not the stuff sweeping love stories are made of.

Bo Derek starred as Jane Parker. I'm not too familiar with Derek's career, but this film certainly doesn't make a case for her being unjustly forgotten. Her performance was flat, wooden and miserable; the terrible script did nothing to help her and because she was in about 99% of the scenes, she was effectively the worst thing about any particular moment. Her only strength was her ability to drop her drawers and appear in the nude whenever the story demanded it (which was often). This was the reason for the film's R rating, but I can't say it was worth it; I mean, surely everyone who wanted to see her in the buff was already buying Playboy?

Richard Harris played James Parker, Jane's father. Harris threw so much loud, booming emotion into every single line delivery that he almost managed to overpower the terrible dialogue. Unfortunately, having begun his performance dialed up to eleven, he had nowhere to go with it. He provided the best laughs and it seemed like he was the only man on the production who knew he was making a turkey and felt he might as well kick back and enjoy himself. Like Brian Blessed in Flash Gordon, Harris brought his best "large ham" delivery... pity that unlike the former, Harris was the only actor worth his salt.

John Phillip Law held the enviable role of "Man there so Richard Harris has someone to talk to," otherwise known as Harry Holt. Although he was present for roughly 70% of the film he managed to have zero screen presence. I suppose it's an achievement.

Finally, the fourth-billed Miles O'Keeffe portrayed Tarzan. Having heard he was supposedly a terrible Tarzan, I'm here to say: he had the best performance in the picture. Obviously, this isn't saying much. He had no dialogue (even the "Tarzan yell" was recycled from Johnny Weissmuller's films) so had to carry himself with body language, like a silent film actor. Consequently, O'Keeffe was spared having to mouth any lines from the script and maintained his dignity, which ain't too shabby when you're playing a glorified boy toy in a loincloth being groped by Bo Derek. There were moments when O'Keeffe's eyes would project sensations of fear and confusion and at such times, I could completely relate to his character.

To leave this on an upbeat note... the filming locations in Sri Lanka and Seychelles were absolutely beautiful. Also, the Frank Frazetta artwork on the production company's title card was very good.

Amazing Mysteries of Suspense!

In a well-circulated anecdote about EC Comics in the 1950s, we learned how they once swiped a plot from Ray Bradbury for their comic, only for Bradbury to confront them. Rather than suing the company, Bradbury opened the door to official adaptations, resulting in many EC titles advertising Bradbury's involvement on their front covers.

As I've learned more about the horror comics published by Atlas (aka Timely or Marvel Comics) during the same era, I've found plagiarism ran rampant in those days; to judge by the sheer number of rip-offs I've seen, it's little wonder EC thought they could get away with an uncredited Bradbury adaptation - everyone else was! Atlas swiped Bradbury's "the Small Assassin" on at least two occasions. If you know your short fiction of the era pretty well then you can easily recognize the stories which hijacked the likes of Nelson S. Bond's "Conqueror's Isle" or Carl Stephenson's "Leiningen Versus the Ants."

However, given the sheer number of pulps, magazines and anthologies being published in the first half of the 20th century, there are scores upon scores which simply vanished into the ether; heck, even authors who are remembered to this day (such as F. Scott Fitzgerald) haven't kept all of their short fiction in-print. "The Small Assassin" remains a popular tale, which makes the rip-offs easy to spot. Regardless, there are times when I ponder over Atlas' horror books and wonder... just how many of these stories were pilfered from tales I have never heard of?

Atlas began their run of horror comics in 1949 with three titles: Amazing Mysteries, Marvel Tales and Suspense; others would follow. At the time, the boom markets were in westerns, romance books and crime comics. These first three horror titles have much in common with the crime comics - in fact, after just two issues of horror, Amazing Mysteries switched formats to crime. Like Atlas' crime books, many of these early tales had an obsession with setting the time and place (month and year are almost always established on the opening page). Several tales contain framing devices wherein a narrator relates the supernatural proceedings to his audience, often needlessly. For instance, Marvel Tales#97 contains the tale "The World That Vanished" in which a man journeys to a hidden valley in China to discover a secret library with the complete history of Atlantis, but is told he can never leave the valley; the man reads the histories and then the real story begins as he learns how Atlantis was destroyed. There was a definite lack of economy in how the stories were being told, but horror comics were something new for Atlas - and comic book makers in general. It would take time for EC Comics' beloved "O. Henry-style twist" to become the norm.

And now, just like a poorly-conceived 1950 Atlas comic, the real point of this post: in 1949's Amazing Mysteries#32, there's a story called "With Intent to Kill!" in which a man murders his girlfriend, believing she's unfaithful; the surprise ending reveals she was dead of a disease hours before he shot her. Reading this tale, I was stunned to realize it was a familiar piece, but the revelation it was a rip-off just lead to more questions! "With Intent to Kill!" is a complete theft of Elliott Lewis' Suspense episode "Can't We Be Friends?" (which you can hear here). Lewis' story was broadcast July 25, 1946, three years before the uncredited comic book.

My lingering query: how did the adapter select Lewis' Suspense play?

As noted above, 1949 was the year Atlas began their Suspense series (7 months after this issue of Amazing Mysteries). Although the series' connection to the CBS radio program was tenuous at best, they proudly advertised the radio (and TV) show on their covers up to 1951; it probably helped Atlas' circulation as Suspense was an extremely popular show in its time. The first few issues of Suspense did adapt some familiar scripts from the radio Suspense... but for some reason these adaptations all dated back to 1942 when the radio program began its run under the (tepid) guidance of John Dickson Carr; the early issues of Suspense struggled with Carr's over-expository convoluted scripts and the comic book was certainly better for it to have ditched the 1942 clunkers in favour of their own material.

Looking at "With Intent to Kill!," Suspense the comic book would have been better off to have adapted stories from later in the radio series run (basically anything from William Spier's involvement onward). It still wouldn't have made Suspense a proper horror comic book - because Suspense was not a horror radio program - but the program's later system of employing (usually) first person narration would have been a better fit for comics than Carr's drawing room drudgery.

Although certain radio shows would be rebroadcast from time to time - such as Suspense's own "Sorry, Wrong Number" - in 1949 it would have been difficult to obtain a copy of a 1946 broadcast. Is it possible the creator(s) of "With Intent to Kill!" had excellent memories of "Can't We Be Friends?" Or had the initial arrangements to create a Suspense comic book at Atlas enabled them access to the original script? Did the creator(s) have a personal copy of Lewis' script or a transcription of the broadcast? Or could the identical plots just be a fantastic coincidence?

I have no solution to the problem I've described. I'm afraid I shall have to keep you in...

SUSPENSE!

Homepage updates

I'm pleased to announce that - after apparently 3 years - I've updated my website. It remains an old, out-of-date format, but I can't bear to let it go.

The site's primary function is to serve as an index of 1950s Atlas titles, divided by genre into western, war, crime, romance and "horror" (a catch-all for horror, science fiction and fantasy). Further, it was first designed (circa 2000) to identify the original sources of western & horror comics Marvel reprinted in the 60s & 70s. Back when the page was new, even the Grand Comics Database had a lot of gaps where reprints were concerned.

This update reflects three years worth of culling from various sources to make the pages as near-complete as they'll get. Of all the horror & western reprints, I believe I've written up plot summaries for about 95% of them. I might never get around to the last 5%, but we'll see. There have also been many errors over the years, but I've done my best to double-check my work. These days there are many other fine sources for information (like Atlas Tales) out there, so what was once fertile ground is now well-tended; the site exists mainly for my own interest and probably not for many others. Still, the plot summaries might be of interest to some.

If you get some value out the site - thank you very much; I'm always open to criticism and compliments.

Review: Sergio Aragones Funnies#8

At some point last year I assumed Sergio Aragones Funnies had been quietly cancelled. It's often difficult to know what the present status of a non-"Big Two" comic book series; for a time, I assumed I'd missed an issue and kept checking at shops and online to see where issue #8 was - to no avail.

Issue#8 arrived a full 14 months after #7 and opens with an explanation of Sergio's absence: he'd undergone major back surgery. Although he states (above) he can't "put in fourteen-hour days" any more (seriously? 14 hour work days? we should all have his work ethic), he'll continue to work on his own book, Funnies, plus Groo, Mad and Simpsons. Funnies will now be a bi-monthly book. Somehow, even when he's slowing down his pace, Sergio still finds a way to make 90% of comics pros seem lazy by comparison.

As is typical for Funnies, issue#8 includes a variety of features written/drawn by Sergio; there are one-page gag strips (just like his Mad material), puzzle pages (just in case kids are reading?) and a short humourous story; in this issue, Sergio tells a western story: "the Bank Robbers." This tale concerns two robbers who experience many pitfalls in their attempts to make money through outright theft; eventually, they invest their meager fortunes in a bank of their own and quickly discover the best way to steal money is to do it honestly! I was reminded of a line from the movie the Long Riders (1980) where Frank James (Stacy Keach) muses how his preferred occupation was farming - after "banking" (by which he meant, "bank robbing"). Sergio;s "the Bank Robbers" is clearly a reaction to the recent economic meltdown - crafting its own scenario where thieves escape punishment through the veneer of "respectability."

My main reason for supporting Funnies is to get at Sergio's back-up features where he relates interesting anecdotes from his life history. This issue, it's "the Mexican Trip," a story about how Sergio was placed in charge of the Mad magazine creators' annual vacation. Not being much of a Mad fan and fairly unfamiliar with many of Mad's personalities, I wouldn't have imagined I would be too interested in seeing Sergio's "vacation slides" (as it were), but "the Mexican Trip" is successful. As Sergio prepares for his friends' arrival in Mexico, we see him make several unusual arrangements, but their meaning is unclear; as the story develops, we discover Sergio prepared a variety of practical jokes to greet his friends. Each joke is set up in the opening when Sergio makes the arrangements, but Sergio doesn't inform the readers of his intentions until the jokes unfold.

I would be pleased to keep following Sergio Aragones Funnies even if the schedule slipped to annual publication; I choose to accept bi-monthly as the gift which it is.